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She was, in many ways, the perfect spy, living during most of her long years of treason in a pebble-dash semi in Bexleyheath, South-East London, with her maths and chemistry teacher husband Hilary, growing fresh vegetables in her back garden allotment and bringing up their daughter Anita. Described as the most important female agent ever recruited by the USSR, she was considered more valuable than infamous British Reds Kim Philby or Guy Burgess. But a decision not to put her on trial was quickly taken so that the collapsing Soviets would remain in ignorance about just how much we knew. And in April 2019, a film adaptation premiered in the U.K. and the U.S. starring Judi Dench as Joan Stanley, the fictional counterpart to Melita Norwood, the real-life spy. Jennie Rooneys book Red Joan is inspired by the story she found but isnt based on the true story, there are quite a few differences between the two. "And she had her gardening: flowers at the front, vegetables at the back. Over a period of 35 years, she had been a spy for the KGB, passing on Britains nuclear secrets that enabled the Soviet Union to catch up in building the atomic bomb. She told The Times of London that in the same circumstances, I know that I would do the same thing again.. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. She thought he was the best. Image of spy Melita Norwood opening Norwood Labs at Greenwich University in 1993. 1998 In December, Mr Straw is informed for the first time heard about Melita Norwood's role and is told the Security Service was considering whether to prosecute. Melita Norwood, codenamed Hola, was a prized spy in Moscow Passed on Britain's top nuclear secrets over a period of 35 years Her name emerged in the Mitrokhin Archive nine years after she died. The Getty Images design is a trademark of Getty Images. Boards are the best place to save images and video clips. Norwood was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Following in her fathers footsteps, Norwood joined the Communist Party. The public were shocked when elderly woman Melita Norwood was uncovered as a KGB spy. Anak-anak. For example, she used Che Guevara tea mugs and habitually posted copies of the Communist Morning Star through the letterboxes of 32 of her neighbours. There were several cries of ''traitor!'' Melita Norwood Melita Norwood was the daughter of a Latvian father and English mother, and had a sister and half-brother. Norwood worked tirelessly against Britain for four decades before she retired from her spy life in 1972. Klaus Fuchs, Physicist Who Gave Atom Secrets to Soviet, Dies at 76 The New York Times. Her bookbinder father was a Latvian immigrant and Left-wing activist whose slogan was Down with everything thats up, and up with everything thats down. Explaining her motive, Mrs. Norwood said, ''I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany.'' Melita Norwood, pictured here at age 87 in 1999, standing outside her home in Bexleyheath, where she reads a statement to the press concerning her involvement in passing over atomic secrets to the KGB. She began spying for the Soviet Union four years after Josef Stalin took power, working under the code name "Hola". To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. ''I would not have liked to have kept such a secret.''. After all, Norwood had actually been investigated no less than seven times, she'd even been identified as a security risk in 1965. This was to be her big chance, as the association played a key part in our nuclear project, codenamed Tube Alloys when it began four years later. It was middle country, middle class, middle management and middlebrow. [8] Death [ edit] In 2013, author Jennie Rooney published a novel, Red Joan, loosely based on Norwoods life. She was recruited as a Russian agent by journalist Andrew Rothstein in 1934, at the age of just 22. The how is known, the what is mostly conjecture, which makes Judi Dench's film a controversial adaptation - it opts for a more romantic take on the tale that has been called everything from "preposterous" to "inaccurate". But as she became head girl of Hitchin Grammar School and captained the hockey team, few could have predicted the extraordinary outcome of such an early communist indoctrination. Jennie Rooneys book Red Joan is inspired by the story she found but, When Leo is away, Joan begins to fall for co-worker. Like many nonagenarians, Melita Norwood did her best to keep her mind active. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis) (25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant and KGB intelligence source who, for a period of about 40 years following her recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. Indeed, so trusted was Lette that she had access to Baileys two safes. Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Soviet Union with state secrets concerning the development of atomic weapons from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, where she . To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. She claims failing memory as a reason for not being able to recall the names of any of the people she dealt with. She was a bit worried so she took an aspirin before going in. in Aktuality. Her motivations weren't as pure as the film suggests either. She had links with a spy ring working for the Soviets in the Woolwich Arsenal, and three other agents were caught by MI5 and imprisoned. This week her daughter defended her mums decision to spy for the Soviets from 1934 to 1972. Millions of high-quality images, video, and music options are waiting for you. "She once said to me she didn't agree with spying against one's country. It was a show of compassion Russian wouldn't have shown if the tables were turned. And how had the mole managed to infiltrate our system? She says she was working for the ideology not the financial reward. "It's just what you did" she says. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. The British government decided nothing was to be gained from sending the "granny spy" to prison, and Mrs Norwood was left in peace at her home in Bexleyheath. Working so close to highly classified research, Lette had to go through a security vetting. . Sitting in front of Max, her boss, she simply suggests using a centrifuge as causally as you would suggest having a cup of tea before turning back to her notes. Dr Burke says: She was a sophisticated spy. Widowed, Melita moved to Wombourne to be close to her daughter. By When everything she had done came out in the newspapers her neighbours were stunned. Then in 1932, Norwood, now 20, began work in the clerical department of the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (BN-FMRA). GRANNY Melita Norwood, the Soviet Union's top British spy, has died aged 93 - it was revealed last night. Mentioned only by codenames, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, of the infamous Cambridge Five, got critical mention: Burgess for not dressing tidily and being constantly under the influence of alcohol, and Maclean for his drunk spells and being not very good at keeping secrets. spy. Reuters. So who was Hola? Anita Lynn Ferguson, 75. "I must have thought if any of the work the BN-FMRA was doing, not secret stuff, might be useful," she explained. For the KGB, this was an unbelievable piece of good fortune, because Bailey happened to be a member of the advisory committee on the atom bomb project. [9] The film was shot in the UK. Anita FergusonMelita Norwood / Daughter. Untroubled by the problems of the world, and with the added comfort of her married daughter Anita living nearby, Melita Norwood enjoyed the tranquillity of the small development ringed with flowering trees, and got on with her jam-making until her death, aged 93. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis; 25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant, Communist Party of Great Britain member and KGB spy. The Great-Grandmother Comes In From the Cold, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/13/world/the-great-grandmother-comes-in-from-the-cold.html. Whatever she may have done, I love her, said the mother of two. five years later, saying only, ''Somebody said that my work might be an interesting source of material.'' The extent of Norwoods betrayal only became clear in 1999 after Russian defector Vasili Mitrokhin opened up his KGB files to MI5 and British journalists. Geoffrey Levy for MailOnline Key to this was research into metallurgy and this is exactly what Melita Norwood had access to in her apparently lowly job. Though Norwoods employers were suspicious of her ties to the Communist Party, over decades of work they never pinpointed her as a mole. In fact, Melita Norwood was the Soviet Unions longest-serving British spy. In 1958 she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, which is given for heroism in combat or long service in the armed forces. Melita Norwood was a woman in her eighties who had been a dutiful wife and mother, but she was also Russia's most effective spy - going undetected for nearly 40 years. Norwood was the most important British female agent in the whole of the KGB's history as well as the longest-serving of all the Soviet spies in Britain. 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Apart from passing on nuclear secrets, Norwood recruited at least one person to be a KGB spy. Although her father died when she was six, the family still held Left-wing views which the bright child absorbed from an early age. Incredibly, despite doubts about her extreme Left-wing sympathies and links, she was cleared. Judi Dench says later as a young woman she just went along with it. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. This innocuous-sounding association was actually part of a secret nuclear weapons research project with the U.S. called Tube Alloy. When no one was looking, Norwood would sneak into her boss office, open his safe and take pictures of the secret documents inside. Melita would drop off her seven-year-old daughter, Anita, at the local primary school. Something went wrong, please try again later. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis; 25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant and treasonous KGB intelligence source who, for a period after her formal recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies ) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association. She told the newspaper that ''in the same circumstances, I know that I would do the same thing again.''. Red Joan is a 2018 film very loosely inspired by Norwood's life, starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson. Asked if she had ever been frightened of being caught, she said, ''I suppose so, but I can't remember pondering it.''. Streamline your workflow with our best-in-class digital asset management system. 2023 Getty Images. / But what Melita exactly did is up for debate. "When she became politically active in the 1930s, Russia was seen by many people as the only nation capable of defeating the Nazis. Now her double life has inspired the film Red Joan, with Dame Judi Dench co-starring in the title role. It became clear later, when Pavel Sudoplatov of the Russian Ministry of State Security admitted it was 'sources' from Great Britain that helped with such problems, that it was Norwood who gave them the final puzzle piece. She's a very good person, very strong and totally unmaterialistic," she told The Daily Mail at the time. Anita Ferguson, a school laboratory technician from Wombourne, Staffordshire, speaks to the media following the news that her 87-year-old mother. ''In the war the Russians were on our side, and it was unfair to them that they shouldn't be able to develop their weaponry.''. Burke still believes Norwood was the naive character Joan protrays. Her daughter, Anita Ferguson, said she died on June 2. Despite being investigated by them TEN times, and not hiding her socialist sympathies, Norwood secured a job that gave her access to Britains nuclear secrets. In the film, the young Red Joan, played by Kingsman actress Sophie Cookson, is seduced by a handler and has an affair with her boss. The KGBs man on the inside was in fact Melita Norwood, a grey-haired, tea-drinking woman in her eighties who enjoyed tending the roses at her semi-detached home in suburban South East London. <br> <br>1. Melita Norwood passed secrets to the Russians for decades after being recruited in 1935 by a former correspondent for the Soviet news agency TASS. Spy Melita Norwood (far left) pictured with her mother Gertrude, sister Gerty and half-brother Alfred Brandt. We sent soldiers there to die against Hitler. Some believe, however, the real reason she was not put on trial was to avoid embarrassing details emerging about MI5s mistake in allowing her to work as a personal secretary at the very heart of Britains secret atomic research, even though she was known to have Communist sympathies. In 1999, an 87-year-old British woman held a press conference in front of her home to announce that for nearly four decades, shed worked as a spy for the Soviet Union. "'I Gave Bomb Secrets to Russia So It Could Stand Up to the West.'" . This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Soviet Union with state secrets concerning the development of atomic weapons from her job at . She took top-secret documents from the Tube Alloys project - the cover name for the nuclear weapons programme - copied them and passed them to her KGB handlers. Intriguingly, it included profiles of 200 British KGB collaborators written by their Kremlin handlers. Includes Address (23) Phone (7) Email (7) See Results. This afternoon she strolled in her garden at the request of photographers but refused to answer any questions. Anita Ferguson As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. It was her appointment at the research facility that gave her the access she needed. Her husband Harry, died in 1986. Burke, who later wrote The Spy Who Came In From the Co-op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage, noted that Norwood kept repeating I thought Id got away with it. Yet as Burke wrote, she actually did get away with it: even after her outing, the government still declined to prosecute her. It was directed by Trevor Nunn, [10] and produced by David Parfitt, with a screenplay by Lindsay Shapero. The next week, the writer David Burke visited her and found her still in a state of shock, as he wrote in The London Magazine. When the spy was eventually unmasked half a century later in 1999, the identity came as a huge shock. This was a woman who was seen pottering around tending to her vegetables and flowers. He said: "Melita was not a hard-line Stalinist. I thought perhaps what I had access to might be useful in helping Russia to keep abreast of Britain, America and Germany. She added that, in general, I do not agree with spying against one's country.. Melita Stedman Norwood (ne Sirnis; 25 March 1912 - 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant, Communist Party of Great Britain member and KGB spy.. Born to a British mother and Latvian father, Norwood is most famous for supplying the Soviet Union with state secrets concerning the development of atomic weapons from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association, where she . Melitamarried Hilary Norwood. We cannot guarantee accuracy of data published on this website. Journalism strengthens democracy. Members of her family didnt know what was going on at all. When she returned to the firm in 1944, she went to work for the director, Dr G. L. Bailey, who wanted Lette because he knew she could cope with the technical jargon. 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